Databases are organized collections of data. Flat-file databases can include a collection of records, each record having data pertaining to multiple fields or parameters. A flat-file database can be represented as a table in which the rows correspond to records and the columns correspond to fields. The intersection of a record (row) and field (column) is termed a “cell” and typically stores the value for a field parameter for a particular database record. Other database types, e.g., relational, hierarchical, and network databases, can have multiple related tables, each with records, fields, and cells.
Some databases have only a few cells, while others may have over a billion. The amount of data, e.g., in bytes, contained in databases can vary significantly. At the high end, some databases contain well over a petabyte of data. To reduce the amount of physical storage required for database, e.g., to reduce equipment costs, databases can be compressed. A compressed database can have a “compressed” size and a “raw” size. The “raw” size of a database generally corresponds to the amount of storage that would be required to store the compressed database in uncompressed (expanded) form.